On a harsh frontier, a young woman must fight for her true identity…
We’re honored to share the first chapter of Face the Night, a young adult fantasy novel from the late Lani Forbes, author of the award-winning Age of the Seventh Sun trilogy. Forthcoming August 15th from Blackstone Publishing, Face the Night includes a brief foreword from the author’s husband—reprinted below along with the excerpt.
Once, Catriona Macgregor led a charmed life. Daughter of a wealthy rancher, pretty and educated, she looked forward to all the world had to offer—until fate took a turn. Now family, home, and even her name have been stripped away. As “Black Cat Whitfield,” adopted daughter of an outlaw, she’s wanted by the authorities. It certainly wasn’t the destiny she imagined—especially as one of the Blessed.
The Blessed, rare people like Cat, are supposed to use their gifts to carry out missions for the Patron Saints, but she can only imagine that Saint Prudentia made a terrible mistake in choosing her. Still, her gift has never deserted her. Whenever danger threatens, Cat receives a vision—just in time to save her life. And when she meets a renegade priest, Father Ignatius, he helps her understand how her ability may be part of a much bigger picture. A picture that involves facing up to the monstrous Baron Caldwell—the one who ordered her parents killed—and his son, Adrian, who betrayed them all.
Cat is torn between guilt over her parents’ deaths, a longing for vengeance against their killers, and a dismaying new interest in Adrian. It would be easiest to flee the whole situation and never look back. But as someone once told her, you can’t outrun the darkness on your heels. There’s only one way to break through to sunrise—by turning to face the night.
Foreword
What would you do with a glimpse into your future? A preview that gave away the next few moments?
Lani Forbes and her protagonist Cat both foresaw the near future. I have the tremendous honor, while filled with sorrow, to write this foreword. I am Lani’s husband. I had a front-row seat from the very first thought to the final word as Lani wrote her last tale, Face the Night. She sat on the hospital bed, holding our two-day-old baby, when she was told she had stage 4 neuroendocrine cancer. While neither of us said it out loud, we both knew deep down, it was just a matter of time.
I accompanied her to hospital beds to get chemo, drove her across states to various hospitals, and rode planes with her across the country to speak with some of the top cancer specialists in the world. She fought for every possibility, and at the same time, she wrote with abandon, knowing her time drew near.
If you were with her, you would have heard her phone clicking with every letter of this wild adventure.
Everyone who watched Lani’s journey saw her bravery. She instilled in our children that being brave does not mean you are not afraid. Being brave means that despite being afraid, you still go forward. The main character, Cat, has plenty to fear from her checkered past—those that want to steal what is hers, those that want her dead, and perhaps love itself. However, Cat battles forward, never giving up, even in her darkest moment, just like Lani.
The characters are full of love, attachment, betrayal, guilt, and shame. Their individual stories will compel you to read “just one more chapter.”
Lani wrote her own strength, humor, determination, and fears into Face the Night. She weaved together magical and spiritual elements, including lore, into this brave new world. To those that read the Age of the Seventh Sun series, this will be no surprise. Lani’s ability to build worlds won her many awards. I would open the mailbox to awards for which I didn’t even know she was in the running. Sometimes she’d receive two awards on the same day.
Thank you to Samantha Wekstein, Thompson Literary, and Blackstone Publishing for making this story, full of new characters, magic, and adventure, available to the world. Every character written by an author is a shard of themselves, and I’m grateful the shards of the most amazing wife, mother, daughter, friend, teacher, scientist, trauma coach, and author, Lani Forbes, will be out in the world forever.
She faced the night. May we only be as brave.
—Kevin Forbes
Chapter 1
The hangman’s rope dangled against dark clouds obscuring the sky. Fate had finally come for its bitter vengeance, and for once in her life, Catriona Whitfield couldn’t run.
The iron bars across her open window had done little to hold back the recent rains. Lightning from a passing thunderstorm charged the desert air, blowing in a damp smell of earth mingled with sweet sage. The stone walls around her seemed to press in tighter, sparking a fluttering panic. She couldn’t breathe.
I need to get the hell out of here.
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Face the Night
Her fingers clawed at her throat. The heavy chains secured around her wrists clanked at the movement. The damn sheriff had made sure they were good and tight—a wise choice on his part, even if the rest of him was every shade of stupid.
Her gaze darted to the wall opposite her cell. Beside her faded wanted poster, a pair of perfectly shined six-shooters hung on an iron peg. Her fingers itched for the familiar worn handles. What she would do with them if she ever got the chance to hold them again…
There was a long list of charges against her. The last few years with Amos and the Wolves, she’d gone along on cattle raids and coach robberies, even flirted with watchmen to distract them while the Wolves sneaked into the places they were supposedly guarding. Maybe she did deserve to die, but certainly not like this. What kind of legacy would that leave? To hang as a petty criminal in a foreign nation? No, if she was going to die, it needed to be a statement as grand as the sins she’d committed. As grand as the destiny that had been stolen from her. Fate owed her that much, at the very least. Cat swallowed and clawed at her throat again.
A vision flashed suddenly behind her eyes, zapping into her mind like the bolt of lightning that hit outside the jailhouse last night. A harshly handsome face, angular and young, but still older than her own seventeen years. The navy-and-gold uniform of an Ordonian soldier, accompanied by the sounds of keys jangling and the iron bars of the cell door creaking open.
As soon as the image came, it was gone. Her visions of the immediate future never lasted more than a brief moment. They were a Blessing gift from the Saints, her father had always said. A gift that had always given her the warnings she needed to stay one step ahead.
It’s how the revolvers hanging on the wall outside her cell had become as infamous as the hands that wielded them.
Thudding boots announced the sheriff ’s arrival, but she already knew he would not be alone. An Ordonian soldier would be coming with him today. She nervously fingered the end of her long braid. The faded light trickling through the storm clouds illuminated hints of red in the dark brown strands. A few heartbeats later, the sounds of jangling keys and creaking metal made her look up. Her stomach twisted into a nervous knot, but she quickly stuffed the feeling down. The face from her vision wasn’t one she recognized, but that didn’t mean anything.
Plenty of folks were hunting her now.
“Here she is,” the sheriff said, pushing open the cell door. The old man’s thick, gray mustache stood out like a bramble against the rugged landscape of his face. He tucked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans and tilted up his chin—like a proud hunter with the season’s finest catch strapped across the back of his horse.
She looked past him, searching for the smooth-cheeked face from her vision. Whoever he was, he was some kind of threat, or her gift wouldn’t have flashed his face.
“Where’s the young buck?” She angled her head and gave the sheriff a saccharine smile. The smile that said, You can’t break me. It was true. You couldn’t break something that wasn’t whole to begin with.
More thudding boots, and the handsome face moved into the cellblock. It was too handsome, pretty almost. Boys that looked like that didn’t have to work for a damn thing in their lives. His military uniform and the light hair under his hat were coated with the dust of a long journey, and his dark, greedy eyes shone like beetles scuttling under a rock. He let out a low whistle, stretching out his words. “By the Saints. She actually saw me coming?”
“Told you it’s her. Caught her two weeks ago, trying to escape across the border,” growled the sheriff. “Stay back though, she’s slicker than pig snot and just about as pleasant.”
The young man tipped back his hat, exposing a long pale nose. “It’s hard to tell under all the grime. But she’s younger than I expected.”
The sheriff moved a hand to the pistol at his hip. “She’s seventeen. Makes her old enough to hang, in Caseda.”
“She’s an Ordonian citizen. You don’t have the authority to hang her here.” The soldier’s voice rang with subtle power, like he was used to telling others what to do.
“That why you came to fetch her? Take her back?”
“Yes,” he said, removing his dusty white gloves. “I’m taking her back to Saint’s Landing.”
Saint’s Landing? Catriona hissed like a feral cat and scrambled back against the stone wall. She hated the godforsaken port city that sat like a blemish on the otherwise unmarred face of Saelum Territory’s coastline. The territory’s only city, really. The wild desert of northwestern Ordonia was populated mostly by crumbling townships and rugged outposts. And, of course, the sprawling ranches of wealthy cattle barons who fancied themselves the royalty of the westlands. “You’re not taking me back there!”
“This ain’t up to you, sweetheart.” The sheriff patted his gun again. “This man paid a pretty penny to take you off my hands and I sure as heck ain’t gonna stop him.”
“I’d rather hang, you filthy, greedy son of a—”
A hand whipped across her face. The sheriff chuckled. “You might wanna muzzle her too.”
Cat spat blood onto the muddy floor. She lifted her dagger-filled eyes to his. If only she had her guns…
“My men are prepared for the transport. We’ll get her on the train before sundown. We should cross into Saelum Territory by morning and reach Saint’s Landing by midafternoon. I’ve got laudanum to sedate her if it comes to that.”
“If you’re not careful, that gift of hers will give you trouble, Captain Freeman.” The sheriff narrowed his eyes as if he doubted the captain fully understood the situation.
But Freeman waved a dismissive hand. “My men have handled the Blessed before.”
Cat snorted. He really thought he could “handle” her all the way to Saint’s Landing?
An irritated muscle twitched in his too-perfect jawline.
“She ain’t one of your Blessed, Captain. No Saint in their right mind would’ve granted any blessings to someone as soulless as this creature. Cursed by the Fallen One, more like. She killed three of my men before we were able to get her in chains.”
A shadow seemed to flicker in Freeman’s gaze. “How was she finally captured?” Though he didn’t say it, Cat could tell it chafed his pride. It had taken the authorities of a foreign nation to finally subdue her, when Ordonia had been hunting her for years. Good. She liked watching his pride squirm. But Cat knew the truth. It wasn’t the prowess of the Casedian authorities that had led to her capture—it had been her own bleeding heart.
The sheriff shifted his shoulders. “There was a family sneaking across the border, couple o’ young kids in the group. She was hiding with them in the wagon.”
Captain Freeman narrowed his eyes. “I seriously doubt it was as simple as that.”
The sheriff hooked his thumbs into his belt, puffing out his chest. “People don’t cross our border without paying the tax. The family couldn’t pay, so we followed standard protocol and apprehended them. Somethin’ must have triggered her crazy bloodlust, though, ’cause she burst out of the wagon and started shooting every deputy in sight. Foolish choice, considering she was outnumbered. Took quite a few of us, but we got her down eventually.”
Cat ground her teeth. Of course he’d leave out the details that made him look bad. That the deputies at the border were trying to charge the family above and beyond the set crossing tax. That they took an innocent father into custody when he questioned them, beating him in front of his wife and young children. She hadn’t needed a vision to tell her what would happen after a Casedian deputy put a pistol to the father’s head. Her own guns had been out before the trigger was pulled. She wouldn’t let those children lose their father. It was the last thing a kind, young family like that deserved—a brokenness that never really heals.
The night before, they had taken her in, given her shelter and food from their own stores. The children had run around the campfire, giggling with a joy that had been stolen from her so many years ago. They embodied what a family was supposed to be. And then to watch them ripped apart… maybe the sheriff was right. Maybe she was crazy.
Crazy sick of watching those with power abuse it and take from those without.
“They got in my way.” Cat flipped her hair out of her eyes and smiled as big and wide as a sliver of the moon.
But Captain Freeman ignored her. Irritation flared hot inside her chest. She’d just have to push him further to find that seething temper she sensed beneath his cool facade. For all his pomp and swagger, something dark and dangerous festered in his soul. She couldn’t explain how, but she could sense it. Light from the single gas lamp reflected off his polished gold buttons as he turned to the cell door. He whistled, and two more men clad in navy uniforms came to join him.
Only two. How interesting.
She lifted her chained wrists and pouted. “You gotta unlock me, unless you plan on taking this wall back to Saint’s Landing too.” She rattled the chains for emphasis.
The sheriff ’s frown deepened, but he stepped forward. “Your men ready?”
Cat eyed the keys jangling in his hand with the same kind of lust miners got in their eyes at the news of an aurium discovery.
Freeman settled a hand on his holster, his jaw still tense. “Ready.”
Cat held her breath as the rusted key slipped into the lock that secured her chain to the stone wall. She held still, perfectly still.
The flash behind her eyes flickered with the image of where the sheriff would move next. Metal links clinked against each other, and the heaviness pulling her arms down was gone. Though the cuffs were still around her wrists, the chain was loose. It wasn’t freedom, but it was close enough.
Just as her vision had predicted, the sheriff took his offensive stance exactly where she knew he would…
Faster than the strike of a rattlesnake, Cat jerked the chain down and out of the sheriff ’s grasp. Another jerk. The end of the chain snapped into her open hand.
She threw it over his head and tightened it around his neck. Her arms and back ached from the bruises he’d given her. The old man fell to his knees, fingers fumbling over his neck. Brutal bastard. Let him be the one to look up at her for a change.
“The Fallen One awaits you in hell,” she purred in his ear.
A vision warned her of the gunshot before it happened. She saw one of Freeman’s men about to squeeze the trigger, the barrel of the pistol flaring with golden sparks.
So they were using aurium bullets? They’d cursed the metal in some way that would stop her?
Cat wrenched the sheriff in front of her to take the bullet, and the pistol fired. Voices shouted in a frenzy as the soldiers scrambled to get a handle on a situation that was quickly dissolving into chaos.
Just how Cat liked it. Chaos was a familiar friend.
The sheriff ’s body went rigid against her, his muscles tensed tight. A stain of red mingled with gold blossomed across his chest like the spring roses Mama had grown back in Saint’s Landing. The bullet would disintegrate the moment its magic was spent, but the damage to his body was already done. And judging by his body’s response, it must have been cursed with the tainted power of Saint Severitas to paralyze him. An effective trick to make sure your quarry did not escape. Even if the bullet had just grazed her, she would have been rendered incapacitated.
Aurium looked like gold, but it was infinitely more precious. If you were willing to sell your soul and offer prayers to the Fallen Saint, you could release its corrupted magic—a depraved way for common men to tap into the power of the Saints. It seemed fitting that Captain Freeman didn’t mind using it. But she wasn’t going to give him the chance to use that depravity on her.
The sheriff ’s unseeing eyes were wide open, a golden sheen shimmering within their glassy depths. She snatched the keys out of his open hand. The shackles around her wrists thudded to the floor.
Freedom. Glorious freedom.
Mud and the Saints knew what else crusted her trousers and shirt after weeks in this cell. They were stiff and hard to move. Another flash of a vision. A bullet coming right for her head. She ducked, and the bullet bit into the jailhouse wall. Webs of shimmering gold arced out from the impact point, the magic wasted on stone.
“No point having aurium bullets if you can’t hit me, Captain.” With enormous effort, Cat shoved the sheriff ’s lifeless body into Freeman’s knees, knocking him to the ground. Another bullet whizzed past her head. Adrenaline thundered through her veins.
Cat sprang for the open cell door.
“Stop her!” Captain Freeman yelled from somewhere on the floor. “Don’t let her get—”
But it was too late. Her fingers closed around the worn, familiar handles of the six-shooters hanging on the outside wall. A rush of gratitude almost brought tears to her eyes.
She turned, raising her hands and fixing both barrels on Captain Freeman. She flashed him her most wicked smile. “Shouldn’t have let the Cat out, Captain.” Her thumb clicked back the hammers. “Send my regards to hell.” And then she pulled the triggers.
Click. Click.
The barrels were empty. Cat swore violently. The damned sheriff must have emptied them and left them hanging where she could see them just to taunt her.
Captain Freeman’s face split into a grin as wicked as her own.
Desperate rage burned through her chest. This arrogant soldier wasn’t taking her back. She’d rather die than face Saint’s Landing again. Even the mention of the name had loosened the carefully crafted locks she kept on her memories. They bled into her consciousness like the visions of her Blessing gift—not of the future, but of a past tainted with shame and blood.
The light fading from her father’s eyes. Her mother’s screams. Her father’s ring, buried in the desert along with every dream she’d ever had for her future. Her family shattered like a porcelain vase dropped on tile. Knowing it was entirely her fault.
She’d never go back. Never.
Cat’s muscles tensed to spring. If she couldn’t shoot the eyes out of the captain’s head, she would scratch them out instead.
A sickening crack sounded through her skull. Light flashed behind her eyes. But this time it was not a vision from her Blessing gift. It was the barrel of a gun smashing into the back of her head.
And all went dark.
Excerpted from Face the Night, copyright © 2023 by Lana Forbes.
